John F. Kennedy photo

Remarks of Senator John F. Kennedy, Burbank, CA, Lockheed Air Terminal

September 09, 1960

Senator KENNEDY. Governor Brown, Bill Munnell, our next Congressman, Lt. Gov. Glenn Anderson, and ladies and gentlemen, for the last 24 hours Governor Brown and I have been working on the railroad in California, and we think that here in this State of California is the place to begin the Democratic drive in November. [Applause.]

I think you understand in this State what this election is about. This is a chance for the United States to continue to move forward on the road which Wilson and Roosevelt and Truman and Stevenson urged this country to take. All they can say is what McKinley and Taft and Coolidge and Landon and Harding and the others wanted to say. This is the choice for the United States in 1960. I think this country is a great country, but I think we can do a better job. I think we can move ahead, in this State and across the United States and around the world. [Applause.]

I was nominated in the city of Los Angeles and you cannot possibly stop now. I ask your help in this campaign. I think the real question is what we can make this country be. Has it realized its full potential? Has our day in the sun passed? Have we set into a decline instead of a growth in the United States? Mr. Khrushchev is going to bury us. But that is not what is as alarming as the fact that all over the world, as in Latin America and Asia and Africa, people who used to look to Franklin Roosevelt for leadership now turn to Moscow and Peking and wonder if the future belongs to them. I think the future belongs to us. [Applause.] Not to the United States in that sense, but to those who believe in the cause of freedom, and we are the great hope for freedom. If we fail in this country, the cause of freedom fails. If we succeed, if we make this a better country, if we make this a better place for everyone to live in, if we build more homes and more schools, if we protect our people better, if we end discrimination in the United States, if we move our economic growth forward, then we strengthen the United States, and we strengthen the cause of freedom. That is our chance and that is our opportunity, and I ask your help. [Applause.]

The new frontier is not an easy road, but I think it represents our hope for the future. I ask your help in this country. I think we can win it. Thank you. [Applause.]

John F. Kennedy, Remarks of Senator John F. Kennedy, Burbank, CA, Lockheed Air Terminal Online by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, The American Presidency Project https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/node/274310

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